The automatic 'AI Flood' track day addition to Content Manager is fantastic. It effectively populates the track with more cars without the associated performance disadvantages you normally get when increasing the grid count. It does this by spawning cars ahead of you in a staggered formation, so you could just have, say, just eight AI cars selected but there could effectively be 64 of them driving around, eight of each car model. I've been spending a lot of time driving the 250 GTO on track days at Spa 1966 with a mix of other classic cars of varying performance, and it's been heaven.

Assetto Corsa based mods require AC to be installed to unzip and install files & pCARS based mods require pCARS to be installed to unzip and install files. The author is the same person behind the Unofficial Community Patch for Shift and Unleashed; full details can be found on RD and here: https://projectcarsmoddingteam.weebly.com/

I've always been a fan of this track in older or slower cars, and the recent update is great.
I'm surprised Chris didn't specifically mention Starkey's Bridge in the video, and how it was circumvented in later years for safety reasons yet still remains a famous landmark. It offers an instant contextual reference when driving both tracks back-to-back.

For those of you who are loving LA Canyons for Assetto (and if not - why not?), here's a 12k terrain texture which makes quite a visual improvement, especially on distant hills.
Just place the 'texture' folder in the LAC track folder. Just delete the 'texture' folder if you want to remove it.
I can't detect any performance hit.

For those of you who are loving LA Canyons for Assetto (and if not - why not?), here's a 12k terrain texture which makes quite a visual improvement, especially on distant hills.
Just place the 'texture' folder in the LAC track folder. Just delete the 'texture' folder if you want to remove it.
I can't detect any performance hit.

Why is a fresh installation required? Would a Steam file verification maybe do what you need?

I'm addicted to track days at LA Canyons now. It's digital crack. My current weapon of choice is A3DR and Aphidgod's utterly superb Ferrari 512TR, with the track populated by their other NFS cars. It's just a phenomenal car/track combination, especially using the gated shifter. Such damn fun.

Why is a fresh installation required? Would a Steam file verification maybe do what you need?

I'm addicted to track days at LA Canyons now. It's digital crack. My current weapon of choice is A3DR and Aphidgod's utterly superb Ferrari 512TR, with the track populated by their other NFS cars. It's just a phenomenal car/track combination, especially using the gated shifter. Such damn fun.

Yeh I think a fresh install is needed unfortunately. I moved my old install from Windows 7 over to my new main windows 10 SSD, steam verified a bunch of files and it fucked a few of my mods up. A few of the cars and tracks in that install were shit anyway so I'm going to take the opportunity to start afresh.

Yeh I think a fresh install is needed unfortunately. I moved my old install from Windows 7 over to my new main windows 10 SSD, steam verified a bunch of files and it fucked a few of my mods up. A few of the cars and tracks in that install were shit anyway so I'm going to take the opportunity to start afresh.

When I envisioned KartKraft all those years ago, I wanted to make the game I’d always dreamt of when growing up playing racing games in the 90’s. To say I was heavily inspired by Geoff Crammond’s GP2/3/4, Dave Kaemmer’s GPL, Gjon Camaj’s SCGT, and Stefano Casillo’s NetKar Namie would be an understatement.

After racing karts competitively, there wasn’t anything that came close to replicating what it felt like to drive a kart on the limit with 30 other competitors around you and engines screaming at 21,000RPM. And for good reason; despite their deceptively simple appearance, modelling their physical dynamics accurately is an incredibly complex task. Regardless of a kart’s complexity, you won’t ever play a racing game that’s more fun and as close or rewarding than KartKraft.

Much to the detriment of the development schedule, little did I know that making the game with the features I wanted was going to be such a monumental task. With a comparatively small development team of 3 programmers and 3 artists, not only did we play catch up to our competition who all had existing foundations to build upon, we also needed to innovate and exceed what they had already developed. We never settle for second best.

When we released the Closed Beta Test in 2016 it was evident that there were several shortfalls and fundamental issues that prevented giving you that experience. Most notably, the tyre and chassis models weren’t behaving correctly, replay and photo mode were missing, leaderboards didn’t promote competition and game settings kept resetting. Whilst most testers gave incredibly positive feedback, there was no way I could have released KartKraft and ask you to pay for it when I knew we could do better.

Since the end of 2016, and based on the CBT feedback, we completely rebuilt the game from the ground up and have now written over 1 million lines of code. It may not have looked like it, but there hasn’t been a day the game hasn’t been worked on, played or tested with over 15,200 code and art submissions in that time. Let’s not even begin to count the amount of laps driven in that period!

And that only fixed the issues we encountered during CBT. It was even more critical that we had a game framework capable of allowing us to consistently maintain a weekly or fortnightly update cycle for content and new features. Secondly, the framework needed to be flexible enough to quickly implement ideas from the community without having to rewrite large parts of the codebase. I’m proud to say we’ve achieved both of these and more. We’ve added a physically based tyre model, rebuilt the physics engine, remodeled all the karts, improved the AI, added cloud saving, leaderboard ghost modes, all the while creating the most advanced customization system ever seen in a racing game. This is the game I dreamt of all those years ago and I can’t wait for you to play it!

And now the reason for the update. Given our previous track record with release dates, we weren’t going to make the same mistake of announcing again and disappointing so many of you, until we knew with absolute certainty that KartKraft was ready for Early Access. After an incredible journey, KartKraft will be released next week on Steam on Thursday, November 1st at 9.00am PST

Over the coming week, we’ll be releasing new screenshots, gameplay trailers, our Early Access roadmap and an in-depth look at some of the new features we’ve added. It’s going to be an exciting journey and one I and all of you have been waiting for! So set your alarm clocks and add KartKraft to your Steam Wishlist to be notified when it's out. We’re launching!

In other news, I watched Jan Seyffarth's Spiel vs Realität (Game vs Reality) about ACC yesterday on YouTube. Should be interesting, right? The guy drives GT3 and helps develop Mercedes's GT4 stuff and the Nürburgring is his favorite and most well known track.
Uhm, no. Had he said "I like it and it's a good sim just as all the other titles" that would have saved me some time and brain cells.
One thing maybe worth mentioning is that he saved a slide in the last turn and said that it's more on the unrealistic side and he wouldn't have been able to do that IRL or in iRacing. Personally I thought that the safe standard setup of the car with lots of traction control cut the power heavily and that helped him there. His "minimum force" set to 20 also seemed odd for an OSW.

I agree, refreshing to see honesty and personality in corporate communications. I don't have much interest in karts but I've added the game to my Steam Wishlist and if it's reasonably priced I'll be buying it.

Could be related to the effect of active body weight. It's nowhere near as significant as bikes, but it is there. The KartSim DLC for rF2 is the most realistic I've felt (the standard kart in rF2 is also very good), and all of the Reiza karts have been pretty good too. I tried the beta of Kart Racing Pro a long time ago and couldn't get it to work properly but that seemed to have some potential.

Could be related to the effect of active body weight. It's nowhere near as significant as bikes, but it is there. The KartSim DLC for rF2 is the most realistic I've felt (the standard kart in rF2 is also very good), and all of the Reiza karts have been pretty good too. I tried the beta of Kart Racing Pro a long time ago and couldn't get it to work properly but that seemed to have some potential.

Mascot I installed GBW suite for AC yesterday and it now runs like shit for me in VR no matter what I do. I'm actually ok with 45fps when messing around with the AI, but we are talking below 45fps here no matter what I do... I'm close to giving up and removing it but that will also mean no shader mod :(

Any tips? What graphics settings do you run and with how many AI cars?

Mascot I installed GBW suite for AC yesterday and it now runs like shit for me in VR no matter what I do. I'm actually ok with 45fps when messing around with the AI, but we are talking below 45fps here no matter what I do... I'm close to giving up and removing it but that will also mean no shader mod :(

Any tips? What graphics settings do you run and with how many AI cars?

I've not downloaded the last few GBW Suite updates and tend to use the old 'Autumn' weather from the original (pre-suite) GBW for all daytime driving. It just looks so damn good in VR with a mix of moody rain clouds and clear blue skies.

Re my settings, I have ASW forced and run everything at very high values. I've got a 22-car GT3 preset saved (with every car different, and a mix of Kunos cars and lod-free mods) and it runs flawlessly (ASW flawlessly, so not dipping below a reprojected 45fps) on well optimised tracks (eg Monza, Spa). Your framerate can vary wildly though depending on the car you are driving, the AI cars, and the track. I've got some tracks (eg Maple Valley FM7 direct rip) that are currently so poorly optimised that I can't even hot lap at 45fps in cockpit view. Bathurst FM7 (on Reboot https://actrackrebootproject.wixsite.com/ac-track-re-boot/bathurst2018laserscanned) was like that until Terra21 optimised it, and now it runs like a dream. Weirdly, there's a billboards mod for this track on RD that gives even more performance gains https://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/2018-bathurst-liqui-moly-12h-supercheap-1000.23613/

TL:DR try the 'Minimum' pp filter and bear in mind that car and track choice can have a big effect on performance.

I've not downloaded the last few GBW Suite updates and tend to use the old 'Autumn' weather from the original (pre-suite) GBW for all daytime driving. It just looks so damn good in VR with a mix of moody rain clouds and clear blue skies.

Re my settings, I have ASW forced and run everything at very high values. I've got a 22-car GT3 preset saved (with every car different, and a mix of Kunos cars and lod-free mods) and it runs flawlessly (ASW flawlessly, so not dipping below a reprojected 45fps) on well optimised tracks (eg Monza, Spa). Your framerate can vary wildly though depending on the car you are driving, the AI cars, and the track. I've got some tracks (eg Maple Valley FM7 direct rip) that are currently so poorly optimised that I can't even hot lap at 45fps in cockpit view. Bathurst FM7 (on Reboot https://actrackrebootproject.wixsite.com/ac-track-re-boot/bathurst2018laserscanned) was like that until Terra21 optimised it, and now it runs like a dream. Weirdly, there's a billboards mod for this track on RD that gives even more performance gains https://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/2018-bathurst-liqui-moly-12h-supercheap-1000.23613/

TL:DR try the 'Minimum' pp filter and bear in mind that car and track choice can have a big effect on performance.

Figured it out... it was actually a setting in SteamVR that was screwing with me. I had global SS set to 160% and the per app SS setting for AC set to 160%, so they were multiplying. No idea how that happened, must ahve changed it without thinking last night. Now running it at "just" 160% set in SteamVR (and bizarrely enough it looks the same IQ wise...) and I'm getting 80-90 fps with 15 AI cars in daytime races (and 90 fps when I drive without AI) with the following settings:

Happy camper now :)

Funnily enough, the PP filter you linked was what I was previously using when using stock weathers. It works great.

Lol, it's pretty remarkable, isn't it? There are night versions, light configs, and wet versions of most tracks now. The stereoscopic mirrors add the biggest wow factor for me still.
Apps wise, let me think. BLM Lights, BLM Car (to adjust mirror angle, aspect ratio, and FoV), Real Head Motion is awesome in VR to find the right balance between cockpit & world movement (Ilja has his own version built into CM now too but I've not tried it), Crew Chief is a must, I still use Joy2Key but again, Ilja has built a version of that into CM too. You can add VAO to most tracks now too. Get on the Discord and download light configs, VAO configs, splash screens etc and the latest shader mod (which is now out of preview and in full release).

Track days with AI flood at LA Canyons is probably the best fun I've ever had in a sim. Driving A3DR's drift-happy 512TR against the Countach, the XJ220, the 959, the F40 and any of the other 80s/90s supercars gives me a real Cannonball Run/Gumball/Outrun/Need For Speed/Test Drive nostalgic vibe that fills me with indescribably warm and fuzzy joy. Protip: use the main loop in reverse. It's awesome.
IMO.

The graphics, sound, and physics of ACC are streets ahead of any modded AC that I've seen. Perhaps it could have all been done with engine upgrades, but perhaps it was easier to work with a new one. Sim racing is still dominated by titles that seem to be stubbornly sticking to their dated engines; I think Kunos should be praised for making the leap.

The graphics, sound, and physics of ACC are streets ahead of any modded AC that I've seen. Perhaps it could have all been done with engine upgrades, but perhaps it was easier to work with a new one. Sim racing is still dominated by titles that seem to be stubbornly sticking to their dated engines; I think Kunos should be praised for making the leap.

Absolutely understand some of the improvements i.e. physics and perhaps sound could have been improved using the old engine.

UE4 powered KartKraft looked shite outside of the photomode when I beta tested it and ACC looks great in photo mode too. I'm hoping the ACC graphics improve over the early access builds as I'm not enjoying the visual quality at all - I'm getting a headache from playing ACC over an extended period of time.

I find this odd as the other UE4 game I own - Hellblade - gives me none of these issues.

Absolutely understand some of the improvements i.e. physics and perhaps sound could have been improved using the old engine.

UE4 powered KartKraft looked shite outside of the photomode when I beta tested it and ACC looks great in photo mode too. I'm hoping the ACC graphics improve over the early access builds as I'm not enjoying the visual quality at all - I'm getting a headache from playing ACC over an extended period of time.

I find this odd as the other UE4 game I own - Hellblade - gives me none of these issues.

I'm also not impressed with the current state of ACC in-game (cockpit view, VR) graphics either. Hopefully they'll improve but right now I much prefer AC.
ACC performance worries me too - UE4 seems like a much bigger resource hog right now.

I'm also not impressed with the current state of ACC in-game (cockpit view, VR) graphics either. Hopefully they'll improve but right now I much prefer AC.
ACC performance worries me too - UE4 seems like a much bigger resource hog right now.

Kunos are clearly learning how to optimise the UE4 engine so I'll cut them some slack. Hellblade is several iterations lower than ACC (v 4.15 vs v 4.20) so it may be the features in v 4.15 were mature compared to what's in v 4.20.

I do find it funny modders can do what Lord Kunos stated couldn't be done in AC! All the power to them for keeping AC alive.

Aye, it makes the mods even more impressive because of the divergent thinking needed to achieve the seemingly impossible via ingenious workarounds and code manipulation.
One modder is now looking at using the 3D mirror code to apply proper muted 3D reflections to internal glass (even the instrument panel glass) so the dashboard is reflected properly in the windscreen and you might see yourself and the cockpit reflected in the side windows when you look left and right.

Absolutely understand some of the improvements i.e. physics and perhaps sound could have been improved using the old engine.

UE4 powered KartKraft looked shite outside of the photomode when I beta tested it and ACC looks great in photo mode too. I'm hoping the ACC graphics improve over the early access builds as I'm not enjoying the visual quality at all - I'm getting a headache from playing ACC over an extended period of time.

I find this odd as the other UE4 game I own - Hellblade - gives me none of these issues.

While I agree with Betta that a move to commercial graphics engines was a necessary move if sims are targeting a large market that includes console owners, I have to admit that I get headaches from ACC too. In its current state it's not possible to have a single completely stutter free minute with a 16 car grid, no matter the graphics setting (even at 720p and low settings) on my system, meaning it's CPU limited and I fully expect that optimizations will polish this out over time.
However I get headeaches in a stutter free hot lap mode as well over a longer time, it might have something to do with fast camera movement when turning and a very soft image that my suprised brain has problems identifying everything on the screen?
Even more interesting since I never get headaches from tearing and I don't really have problems with games like GT6 either that are below 60fps most of the time but still have a relatively smooth, un-stuttery framerate.

Absolutely understand some of the improvements i.e. physics and perhaps sound could have been improved using the old engine.

UE4 powered KartKraft looked shite outside of the photomode when I beta tested it and ACC looks great in photo mode too. I'm hoping the ACC graphics improve over the early access builds as I'm not enjoying the visual quality at all - I'm getting a headache from playing ACC over an extended period of time.

I find this odd as the other UE4 game I own - Hellblade - gives me none of these issues.

I wouldn't count on it. As far as I'm concerned, any Unreal 4 game that isn't using the forward+ rendering engine looks awful in VR (forward+ games can look amazing as devs want them to). Very disappointed to see that ACC seems to be using the deferred renderer. Even if ACC didn't have all the other issues it does, this alone would make it <<<<<<<<<<<< AC for me.

EDIT: I forget whether you're on team VR or not. Not even sure you're talking VR version here. But comments still stand. Deferred render UE4 looks like dirty, jaggie, smeary messes in VR.

Lol, it's pretty remarkable, isn't it? There are night versions, light configs, and wet versions of most tracks now. The stereoscopic mirrors add the biggest wow factor for me still.
Apps wise, let me think. BLM Lights, BLM Car (to adjust mirror angle, aspect ratio, and FoV), Real Head Motion is awesome in VR to find the right balance between cockpit & world movement (Ilja has his own version built into CM now too but I've not tried it), Crew Chief is a must, I still use Joy2Key but again, Ilja has built a version of that into CM too. You can add VAO to most tracks now too. Get on the Discord and download light configs, VAO configs, splash screens etc and the latest shader mod (which is now out of preview and in full release).

Track days with AI flood at LA Canyons is probably the best fun I've ever had in a sim. Driving A3DR's drift-happy 512TR against the Countach, the XJ220, the 959, the F40 and any of the other 80s/90s supercars gives me a real Cannonball Run/Gumball/Outrun/Need For Speed/Test Drive nostalgic vibe that fills me with indescribably warm and fuzzy joy. Protip: use the main loop in reverse. It's awesome.
IMO.

Another good tip is to unlock 'dev mode' in Content Manager. From memory you do this by clicking several times on the CM version number near the top left of the 'About' screen. A pop-up should appear letting you know if it works. I'm not sure exactly what gets unlocked when you do this but I mainly use it for unpacking/repacking mod car data (when the car doesn't have an accessible 'data' folder) to get access to things like removing the copilot from rally cars, changing the default driver's eyes position for those that start hopelessly out of position (as using the sidebar app to do large adjustments causes big misalignment with HUD elements), beefing up the brakes, correcting gear ratios etc etc .

I'm sure 'dev mode' does a lot of other useful stuff. I really need to do some investigation.